Birth Name :: Richard Munoz Ramirez
Date of Birth :: February 28, 1960
Date of Death :: N/A
Nickname :: Night Stalker
Victims Killed :: 16
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Richard Ramirez (born February 29, 1960) is a convicted serial killer awaiting the death penalty on California's death row. Ramirez was dubbed the "Night Stalker" by the news media and terrorized Southern California with a series of car and home abductions, rapes and murders during the first half of 1985.

Ramirez committed his third known murder on March 17 and tried to kill his victim's roommate at the same time, but she was able to escape and give police a description of her attacker. Media attention increased, and started to cause general alarm after a second attack later that day of a 30-year old woman, who was dragged from her car and shot. She died the next day. The news media dubbed the attacker, who was described as having long curly hair, bulging eyes and wide-spaced rotting teeth, "The Valley Intruder."

Three days later Ramirez abducted an Eagle Rock girl from her home and sexually assaulted her. On March 27 he killed a 64-year old man, fatally stabbed his 44-year old wife, and then proceeded to carve her eyes out while she was still alive. Their bodies were discovered two days later when their worried son paid a visit.

At this point a multi-county full-scale police investigation was in operation. They worked through the month of April with no additional attacks by Ramirez.

Ramirez then invaded the home of a 65-year old man and his wife in Monterey Park. He shot the man in the head and was about to kill his wife when the dying man was able to scare Ramirez away by dialing 9-1-1. The man was pronounced dead when police arrived. A little more than a week later, Ramirez severely beat two women in their 80s after invading their home (one woman would later die of her injuries). Before leaving the home, he inked Satanic pentagrams on one of the women in her own blood.

In June and July, three more women were killed. Two had their throats slit, one was beaten to death, and all three had their homes invaded in the process. On July 20 he again struck twice. In Sun Valley he killed a 32-year old man, beat and raped his wife, and proceeded to forcibly sodomize their 8-year old son while making his bleeding mother listen. Later in the same day, Ramirez shot to death a Glendale couple aged in their 60s.

On August 8 Ramirez critically wounded a Northridge couple by shooting them in their home. The description of their attacker fit the previous ones given for "The Valley Intruder."

Ramirez then left the Los Angeles area, and on August 17 he shot a 66-year old man in San Francisco to death, also shooting and beating his wife. The wife survived her wounds and was able to identify her attacker as "The Valley Intruder" from police sketches. Since "The Valley Intruder" no longer fit the modus operandi of the attacker, the news media re-dubbed him the "Night Stalker."

The next big break in the case came on August 24 when Ramirez shot a 29-year old man in his head and raped his fiance. The man was able to give a description of both Ramirez and his orange Toyota station wagon. A teenager later identified the car from news reports and wrote down its license plate number.

The stolen car was found on August 28, and police were able to obtain a complete set of fingerprints from the vehicle. The prints belonged to one Richard Ramirez, who was described as a 25-year old drifter from Texas with a long rap sheet that included many arrests for traffic and illegal drug violations. Two days later his mug shots were broadcast on national television and printed on the cover of every major newspaper in California.

The next day Ramirez was mobbed and beaten by residents of a Latino neighborhood in East Los Angeles as he was trying to steal a car. Police had to break-up the mob to prevent them from killing Ramirez.

Trial
Jury selection for the case started on July 22, 1988, and on September 20, 1989 he was found guilty of 13 counts of murder and 30 other felonies. During the close of the penalty phase of the trial on November 7, 1989, he was sentenced to die in California's gas chamber.

The trial of Richard Ramirez was one of the hardest and longest criminal trials in history. Nearly 1,600 witnesses were interviewed, and some witnesses had a difficult time with memory recall four years after the crimes. However, others were quite certain of their identification of Richard Ramirez.

On August 3, 1988 the LA Times reported that jail employees had overheard a plan by Ramirez to shoot and kill the prosecutor with a gun that someone was going to smuggle to him in the courtroom. A metal detector was installed outside the courtroom and even the lawyers were searched.

On August 14, 1988 the trial was interrupted because juror Ms. Phyllis Singletary did not arrive. That day she was found dead in her apartment. The jury was terrified. They could not help but wonder if Ramirez had somehow directed this event from inside his prison cell and if he might have something similar done to another of them. Next news was that she was killed by her boyfriend, who later killed himself with the same weapon in a hotel. The alternate for Ms. Phyllis Singletary was so afraid she couldn't even walk to her place.

By the time of the trial, Richard Ramirez had many female fans, who were writing him letters and paying him visits. Starting in 1985, a freelance magazine editor, Doreen Lioy, wrote him nearly 75 letters during his incarceration. In 1988 he proposed to her, and in 1996 they were married in California's San Quentin Prison. Nobody ever found out why women liked this serial killer who had been sentenced to death. Some just thought him innocent, while others found him attractive.

You little idiot kids think this crap is cool. He fkn murdered, raped & did things that make me feel like vomiting.... What a bunch of fkn losers most of you are. Potential future serial killers- NICEEEEEE...

the things people do don't determine their physical attractiveness. Just because I think he's hot doesn't mean I'm gonna go out and murder and rape and steal like he did.. that was a such a stupid think for you to say.

No, he didn't drew anything, just wrote that he want to see pics of the family and town and all that, and wished me happy new year and "your friend /richard", haha, I have not replied to him, too creepy haha.

his childhood? well, i think it was his uncle who had been bragging to ramirez about how he had raped/mutilated/killed prisoners during the war in vietnam. they wrote that ramirez had been fascinated with the photos that his uncle had taken of those victims after and during those sessions there. so that man has probably been some source of inspiration...there's a very accurate book on ramirez somewhere out there for all you analysts..
serial-killers; did you take the photo yourself?

how frustrating, i relaised i called him rodregez not romerez bahhh. i think theres a biography on him somwhere. but most childhoods of serial killers corilate with vilence or sex abuse well abuse in genral.

oh yeah i watched that tv show most evil and they came up with a three contributing factors to becomming a serial killer: brain dammage, sexual abuse in childhood and mental illness and most serial killers display all these sysmtoms appart from the ones who are phycopaths who don't have the capasity for understanding and feeling fear... thought it was intresting